Day by day she sent them her greetings, and with them warnings to attempt nothing--not even to see her--since there was no hope that they would succeed.

So much afraid of them was the Sultan, Rosamund said, that both she and they were watched day and night, and of any folly their lives would pay the price.

When they heard all this the brethren began to despair, and their spirits sank so low that they cared not what should happen to them.
Then it was that a chance came to them of which the issue was to make them still more admired by Saladin and to lift Masouda to honour.

One hot morning they were seated in the courtyard of their house beside the fountain, staring at the passers-by through the bars of the bronze gates and at the sentries who marched to and fro before them.

This house was in one of the principal thoroughfares of Damascus, and in front of it flowed continually an unending, many-coloured stream of folk.
There were white-robed Arabs of the desert, mounted on their grumbling camels; caravans of merchandise from Egypt or elsewhere; asses laden with firewood or the grey, prickly growth of the wild thyme for the bakers' ovens; water-sellers with their goatskin bags and chinking brazen cups; vendors of birds or sweetmeats; women going to the bath in closed and curtained litters, escorted by the eunuchs of their households; great lords riding on their Arab horses and preceded by their runners, who thrust the crowd asunder and beat the poor with rods; beggars, halt, maimed, and blind, beseeching alms; lepers, from whom all shrank away, who wailed their woes aloud; stately companies of soldiers, some mounted and some afoot; holy men, who gave blessings and received alms; and so forth, without number and without end.
Godwin and Wulf, seated in the shade of the painted house, watched them gloomily.